New Insights Into How Fathers Affect Daughters' Self-esteem

As a junior high school teacher, Nicky Marone watched with dismay as bright and lively seventh-grade girls whose hands shot up at every question turned into hesitant teens reluctant to say a word.

Marone began to study the exceptions, the girls who retained their self-confidence and continued to excel. When she found them, she also usually discovered something else: fathers who had supported and encouraged their achievements.

Marone's observations led her to hold seminars on the relationships between fathers and daughters. She also wrote How to Father a Successful Daughter (Fawcett, $3.95 paperback).

''This is not about turning girls into boys,'' said Marone. ''It is about developing girls' full range of potential.''

While the feminist movement has enabled her female students to consider medical as well as nursing school, Marone said it has not yet generated behavioral changes.

For example, until she put a stop to it, Marone said the girls in her classes ended up as secretaries during group activities while the boys dictated policy.

Marone is not alone in her concern over the critical changes that occur in girls during adolescence. Harvard professor Carol Gilligan, in her recent five-year study of a private New York girls' school, found that the confidence and clearsightedness of 11-year-olds had evaporated by the time they were 16.

Gilligan, whose findings appear in a new academic-oriented book, Making Connections: The Relational Worlds of Adolescent Girls at Emma Willard School (Harvard Press), says the cultural message sent to girls is, ''Keep quiet and notice the absence of women and say nothing.''

Marone believes fathers can help give girls a more positive message but says that it is not easily accomplished in a world in which sexism flourishes.

A father has the dual roles of encouraging his daughter's risk-taking and talents and offering approval for her femininity.

Marone said a father should focus on all his daughter's other attributes so she realizes that her value extends beyond her looks.

A father needs to monitor the way he offers advice. Marone heard often from girls that their fathers, in efforts to be helpful, would say, ''You'll never get a boyfriend if you look like that.''

That tells the girl that men have the right to pass judgment on her, to determine whether she measures up to their standards, Marone said. ''A father's goal should be to develop his daughter's self-esteem to the point where she is more concerned that the boy measure up to her standards.''